Recently I read an article In the Religious News Service about Sean Feucht, the man who has been
going around the United States holding outdoor worship services. The article, “There’s
a theology driving Sean Feucht’s worship music protests — and it’s a popular
one,” written by Adam Perez. The author to my surprise points to the
Restoration Movement. Perez writing of
the kind of worship and theology Feucht uses states:
The core of this theology is that
praise and worship manifests God’s presence. Liturgical historian Lester Ruth
has traced this theology back to a Pentecostal preacher named Reg Layzell in
1946 who popularized the idea that “God inhabits praise,” based on Psalm 22:3,
which, in the KJV translation, reads: “But thou art holy, O thou that
inhabitest the praises of Israel.”
By the late 1970s, a rich and
diverse biblical theology had developed around this and other teachings as they
related to a present-day restoration of musical worship modeled after the
liturgical patterns instituted in the tabernacle of King David (1 Chronicles
15).
So in this posting I am going to renew my Restoration
article. However since I have recently discovered groups of house churches,
they call themselves the Ekklesia, rather than church, who are part of both
Restoration and Manifest Sons of God and QAnon, I will at the end be adding
more to the past article. Much of the beginning of the Restoration movement is loosely
connected to teachers and religious organizations that no longer exist or are
not so important to the contemporary movement, but the scriptural
misunderstandings still exists and in some cases has evolved.
The Revival Churches, a name they also used, or Restoration
churches as they are usually called, began around 1947-1948, as a part of the
“Latter Rain” movement. Leaving behind the centers of the 70’s and the
particular books and booklets they published they all will prescribe to at
least one or more of the doctrines I will touch on and they all will agree that
the Church must reach some greater measure of unity, perfection and power
before Christ can return.
The Dying Church:
History Misread
The name Restoration was given to these churches because of
their unique view of church history. According to their scenario, the Church is
seen as losing almost all of her authentic spiritual experience soon after the
death of John the Apostle. According to the movement the Church was weakened
almost to death until Martin Luther began “the restoration” with his teaching
on justification by faith. Within this simplistic view of Church history, the
Church loses all and then is slowly restored back to proper doctrine until she
excels the early Church and brings back the King.
One Restoration writer states,”180 A.D. - By this time the
Spirit had very little control over the lives of individuals.”[1]
He implies in his church history that few believers after 100 A.D. walked in
the Spirit, yet for those first three hundred years, the Church was victorious
in the midst of terrible persecution. Without the comfort, guidance and control
of the Holy Spirit that victory would have been impossible. A more authentic
view of church history is fluctuating decline and revival throughout her two
thousand years.
The Restoration view fails to hold on to the completed
revelations and teaching of the word of God and attempts to add more and more
supposed new revelations to the Church’s tenets.
The Beginning of
Revelations:
One of the first revelations taught by this movement was that
the gifts and ministries of an individual were to be predicted and received by
the laying on of hands. The introduction of this new revelation is found in The Sharon Star, August 1, 1949, in an
article entitled “How This Revival Began.” A preacher named Hawtin writes, “I
shall never forget the morning that God moved in our midst in this strange
manner…The Lord spoke to one of the brethren. ‘Go and lay hands upon a certain
student and pray for him. “… He went in obedience and a revelation was given
concerning the student’s life and future ministry.” As this teaching developed,
the presbytery ministered to the body in this manner, and by prophecy informed
individuals of their ministry.
The Restoration movement’s early beginning appears very
biblical, however using one small portion of scripture to support subjective
revelation tends to produce teaching which fails to include the complete
instruction and reproof of scripture on any given subject. For instance in I Timothy 4:4, Paul tells
Timothy not to neglect the spiritual gift within him which was bestowed upon
him through prophetic utterance and the laying on of hands. This text is taken
as a proof-text that a ministry, gift, or calling is always received in this
manner. Yet this verse says nothing about a set pattern for calling believers
into service. For example, in Acts 6, the apostles asked the congregation to
choose seven men to serve tables and afterwards they laid hands on them.
Prophecy had nothing to do with the choosing.
From this early beginning, a pattern was set: revelation
comes first and is then checked by scripture; moreover since the only scripture
texts that are sought tend to confirm revelation, not all scriptures on the
subject are studied. The believer’s personal life-choices as well as church
doctrine then is guided by subjective revelation.
The Hand or Five-Fold
Ministry:
The “five-fold ministry” and/or “Hand Ministry” was a
teaching that was supposedly restored to the Church at this time. Ephesians
4:11-15, the ministry of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers,
is the basis for this teaching but is misapplied. The early Restoration leaders
considered the apostle and prophet restored in a foundational sense, i.e., with
the ability to give new revealed truth. In contrast the Bible teaches that the
Church is being built upon the foundation laid by the Apostles and Prophets of
the Old and New Testaments. This foundation, having already been given cannot
be added to or changed.
The foundational Apostles laid foundational truth, the New
Testament. This was possible because they were eyewitnesses to the resurrected
Christ, and he chose them for this ministry. In fact, Paul refers to himself as
“one untimely born” (1Cor. 15:8) because last of all Jesus appeared to him.
Also see Acts 1:21-26 for the biblical requirements for an Apostle. Those that
we might refer to today as apostles are, according to the N.T., merely “sent
ones.”
The Restoration churches began to accumulate “restored
doctrine” on the return of Christ. Restoration teachers often insist Jesus will
not return until the church is mature and perfect. As I will show at the end of
this piece the outer fringe of these teachers, the Manifest Sons of God, will
use this idea of a perfect and mature church to build an elaborate and
extremely heretical teaching on the
second coming. But one important point is according to Restoration
teaching the second coming of Christ is contingent upon the new revelations of
these restoration apostles and prophets.
David’s House:
One of the new doctrines concerns what is referred to as
“The Tabernacle of David.” The Old Testament tells of David the King bringing
up the Ark of the Lord, and rather than placing it in a tent of meeting at
Gideon, he placed it in a tent he had prepared for it in Jerusalem. (2 Chron
1:4) most in the Restoration movement believe David did this at the bidding of
the Lord. They believe that God established a manner of worship in David’s tent
different from that of the tabernacle of Moses. This new style of worship was a
more spiritual style, and is, they believe, a picture of the type of worship
the Church is to perform.
Restoration teachers
are thus concerned with worshiping God in a certain way: Not only prayer,
praise, kneeling, and standing, but dancing (altogether), clapping, lifting up
hands, and shouting. It must be understood that this is not biblically wrong,
the error is in the idea that this is restored doctrine and the only correct
way to worship God. Their flawed assumption is that God will then inhabit the
praises of his people, and as God is praised, the congregation is more
spiritually empowered to restore the Church and raise it to perfection.
The biblical texts corrects this view. Two important texts
concerning this doctrine are Amos 9:11-12 and Acts 15:14-17. Vines’ Repository Dictionary of New
Testament gives the meaning of tabernacle in Acts 15-16 as “tent, booth,
tabernacle … (f) the house of David, i.e., metaphorically of his people.”
Obviously this refers to David’s family line which culminated in Jesus.
In Acts 15 Peter is speaking to the Church concerning the gentiles
in the Church and whether they needed to be circumcised. The question here
concerns grace or law; must the gentiles worship in a certain manner (by being
circumcised and observing the order of the temple) in order to be acceptable to
God? Peter reminds the elders that the gentile’s hearts are cleansed by faith
alone (verse 9) and that they themselves, “are saved through the grace of the
Lord Jesus.” The issue is not animal sacrifice and circumcision versus dancing,
clapping, shouting, etc. in order to please God but, rather, are the gentiles
saved by faith or works?
Then James, in agreement with Peter, began to speak and
quoted from the Prophets, in particular Amos, addressing the rebuilding of the
tabernacle of David. James quoted from Amos and then explained that the House
of David which God had promised to establish forever (1 Chron. 17:11-14) found
its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, the descendent of David. The coming of Jesus
Christ established the house or tabernacle of David, and His death on the cross
and exaltation established the Church, God’s true house forever.
The Perfect Church:
The Bible verse, “That He might present to Himself the
Church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that
she should be holy and blameless.” (Eph. 5:27) is used by Restoration churches
to prove that the last generation must come to maturity and perfection before
Christ can come. They falsely teach that this refers only to a last days Church
and is something Christ has been waiting for throughout the entire church age.
They conclude that those who do not receive their restored truths will not come
into maturity and, by implication are also hindering the Church and Christ’s
return.
Eph. 5:27 is actually set at the end of a chapter describing
the love Christ has for the whole Church as an example of the love a husband
should have for his wife. Verse 27 gives the ultimate reason Jesus died for the
Church as well as the outcome of the sanctifying work of Jesus within the
Church and within the believer. The Bible speaks of the Holy Trinity being the
one who sanctifies: God (1 Thess. 5:23), Jesus (Heb. 2:11), and the Holy Spirit
(1 Pet. 1:2). The word of God (John 17:17, 19), and the blood of Christ (Heb.
9:14) are the means of sanctification. Scripture teaches that God sanctifies
the believer as she submits to God. It is a progressive process and it is never
separated from the atonement and is always concerned with the entire Bible
taken in its proper context.
Each believer goes through this process of sanctification;
it is individual as well as corporate. This process clearly includes the whole
Church from the beginning of the church age to the end, not an elite end-time
church. In John 17, Jesus prays for the sanctification of his disciples and all
those who would believe in Him through their testimony; that again includes the
whole church age. God is not waiting for any particular part of the Church to
grow up. He is waiting in patience for all who will come and be saved (2 Peter
3:9).
Indeed though Christians are cleansed from sin by the
sacrifice of Christ on the cross and are progressively made holy in their
growth in the Lord, they are not altogether without a sinful fallen nature
until the return of Christ.
The Church as the
Body of Christ:
Another teaching within the Restoration churches concerns
the biblical understanding of the Church as the body of Christ. As a biblical
teaching it is beautiful, but the Restoration movement pushes the metaphor to
an extreme. The description of the Church as the body of Christ is meant to
show the relationship of Christ to the Church and of individual members to one
another. Christ is the head of the body, meaning both that He is the ultimate
authority and the very source of life to her. (Col. 2:19; 3:4) The members of
the Church are in need of one another and cannot function alone.
In the context of Restoration teaching, the body (the
Church) becomes Christ’s only way of functioning, just as people need their
bodies in order to accomplish any earthly task. As one Restoration teacher
explains, “But the enforcement of Calvary’s victory was placed in the hands of
the Church, Christ’s corporate Body upon earth. The body with hands and feet is
the vehicle which carries out the commands of the Head. If the Body fails to
respond, the will of the Head becomes a dead letter.”[2]
The difference between creature and Creator is blurred and
on earth the Church becomes indistinguishable from Christ. This eventually
leads into the doctrines of the Manifest Sons of God, since it is they who
teach that the Church is the ongoing incarnation. Concerning this, theologian Richard
C. Lucas points out that:
It is this egregious error that has caused
misunderstanding and grief again and again in Church history. For example when
the Church is regarded in literal terms, ‘as an extension of the incarnation,’
the claim is made that Christ is so joined to His church on earth that its
teaching becomes His teaching, and its traditions an expression of His mind.[3]
In this context the prophet and apostle of the Restoration
churches become the voice of God to the individual, and the door is opened for
tyranny within the Church.
Also, within this misunderstanding of what it means for the
Church to be the body of Christ, Restoration teaches that the Church is
required to do all that Christ did and be all that Christ is. The Church, seen
as the literal body of Christ, and possessing the true feet of Christ, is to
destroy all the enemies of Christ. One early Restoration teacher wrote, “Now we
are the body of Christ, and we, too, are to have all things in subjection to
us. At the present time we don’t see this reality with the natural eye. But the
day is coming when we will be full partakers of Christ’s dominion (Heb 2 6-16). God is waiting until all the enemies of
Christ are put under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. There
will be a generation of people created in the last days who will break their
appointment with death (Psalms 102:18)”[4]
(Emphasis mine) Here, already in 1975 the Manifest Sons of God teaching is
promoted within the Restoration movement itself.
Restoration, Manifest
Sons of God and QAnon:
I have discovered that some QAnon followers, who are also Restoration,
now hold to the teachings of the Manifest Sons of God. Besides adhering to such
teachings as “the fivefold ministry” and continuing revelations they are
extremely political and have mixed their very bizarre ideology with their
commitment to former president Donald Trump.
They have combined
all of their bizarre ideology so as to fluctuate between a strong commitment to
Israel and the Jewish people while at the same time linking to QAnon videos
that are extremely anti-Semitic. The videos they are linked to attempt to show
that those, who are in reality Ashkenazim Jews, are not Jews but are part of a
secret group controlling the world.
Merging the Masons and Illuminati with the Ashkenazim Jews they portray
them as those in charge of the “Deep State,” the Democrats, and Hollywood. The
videos raise the old blood libel insisting that all of these groups in thrall
to their masters are kidnapping children for sex and drinking their blood for
its life energy.
The Home
Congregations, call themselves Ekklesia rather than Church believing
the Church has failed in its calling and commitment. Added to this are links to
supposed Bible studies written by Eric J. Ellis an obvious
Manifest Sons of God teacher. Ellis believes there are two sons birthed: Jesus
by Mary and the “overcomers.” By following an elaborate scheme using a great
deal of scripture which Ellis turns into symbolic steps, the “remnant” come out
of the supposedly old Church order and birth Christ within themselves becoming the overcomers or the second son. [5]
This doctrine of overcomers or manifest sons of God has its roots in Romans 8:18-23:
For I consider that
the sufferings of this present times are not worthy to be compared with the
glory that is to be revealed to us.
For the anxious longing
of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. (18-19)
The whole text concerns the resurrection of the whole Church
and what that means for the rest of creation. It has nothing to do with an elite
group moving out of the Church and experiencing the resurrection in order to do
Christ’s work for Him. Both the Restoration churches and definitely the
Manifest Sons of God have begun to add works to their view of what it means to
be saved. I wrote in a much earlier paper:
The gift of God includes redemption, justification,
sanctification, and glorification of our bodies at the visible coming of the
Lord Jesus Christ. There is nothing more that could be added that we should
want. God’s gift is complete and belongs to all of His Church, and it is His
all His work and not ours. “For it is God
who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure (Phil.
2:13).” “For I am confident of this very
thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of
Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6).”
[1]
Dick Iverson and Bill Scheidler, Present
Day Truths, (Portland: Bible Press, 1975), p23.
[2]
Paul E. Billheimer, Destined to Overcome (Minneapolis:
Bethany House Publishers, n.d.) p 33.
[3]
R.C. Lucas, The Message of Colossians and
Philemon, p138.
[4]
Dick Iverson and Bill Scheidler, Present
Day Truths (Portland: Bible Press, 1975) p 132
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